Michael Billington celebrates 60 years as a theatre critic

Image: Michael Billington with Rupert Everett at Chiswick Cinema, September 2024 – Photograph Roger Green

From Cherwell to Country Life by way of nearly 50 years on The Guardian

Michael Billington is celebrating 60 years as a theatre critic this month. Starting his career as a critic on the Oxford University magazine Cherwell (first professional gig was on the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo) he still writes for Country Life, though he is probably still best known as theatre critic of The Guardian – a job he did for 48 years from 1971 – 2019.

He is the author of a number of books, most notably Affair of the Heart: British Theatre from 1992 to 2020, and State of the Nation: British Theatre since 1945, an authoritative overview of modern British theatre and its place in British society, and his seminal biography of the playwright and screenwriter Harold Pinter: Harold Pinter.

As a long-standing resident of Chiswick, Michael curated the Pinter on Screen season at Chiswick Cinema last year, presented in partnership with the Chiswick Book Festival.

There is so much to talk about and unpack in that long career, it’s hard to know where to start, but Michael will be talking to the editor of The Chiswick Calendar Bridget Osborne on Wednesday 28 May for the Media Club about his career and what he has learned about British theatre along the way.

Book tickets for the event in the Boston Room at George IV at 7.30pm:  Michael Billington tickets

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